SURGICAL OPERATIONS. 263 



favorite agent to check granulations, when they were too luxuriant. 

 In short, ^here was no folly which a hot iron did not cover. It 

 has now, happily, fallen into disuse. Most modern practitioners 

 will now confess that their chief reason for exercising the iron is 

 to satisfy the proprietor, not to benefit the animal. After such 

 an acknowledgment, who would submit to have his patient ser- 

 vant's skin scored and burnt with red-hot metal ? 



The mode of cauterization differs according to circumstances. 

 As a general rule, it ought, of course, to be applied in the direc- 

 tion of the hair, by which the blemish is lessened ; but this rule 

 can not be arbitrarily followed, although it ought to do away with 

 all the false pride of displaying the taste in the figures scored upon 

 a prostrate beast. The Veterinary College recommends that the 

 limbs be always fired in perpendicular lines ; others advocate all 

 manner of fanciful marks. Some cast the horse ; many surgeons 

 perform standing. The irons used are of various shapes and di- 

 mensions. Some recommend the firing, of all things, to be very 

 light; others persist there is no virtue in hot iron unless it burns 

 very deep. The operation consists in having irons of some sub- 

 stance made red-hot, and then drawing them mechanically along, 

 or twisting them about upon the skin. The figures are various; 

 so is the depth of the incision. Both must be decided by the taste, 

 judgment, or heartlessness of the operator. 



Blistering. 



This is an operation of very great utility, and is, perhaps, com- 

 pared with its benefits and importance, the safest that is performed. 

 When a vesicatory becomes absorbed through the pores of the 

 skin, it inflames the sensible cutis underneath, the consequence of 

 .v'hich is, an infusion of serum through the part, which, in the 

 human subject, elevates the cuticle into a bladder equal to the sur- 

 face inflamed, but in the horse, from the greater tenacity of the 

 , cuticular connections, it becomes separated in the form of small 

 distinct vesicles only. If the irritating cause be quickly removed, 

 the serum may be reabsorbed, and the surface restored by a slight 

 effort of adhesive inflammation. If the irritant act in a btil { 

 uiinoi degree, it simply irritates the vessels of the cutis to an in- 

 filtration of fluid through the sensible pores, but produces no 

 desquamation of cuticle. Such has been called a sweating blister, 



